Warren Hills beginning plans for new athletic facilities approved in Tuesday referendum

WASHINGTON TWP. | The Warren Hills Regional High School track team never has home meets and a quick glance at the track shows why.

The asphalt is uneven and worn. Grass shoots up through cracks in the pavement and many of the lane numbers are faded, making them nearly illegible.

The team will be among the first to benefit from voter approval Tuesday of spending $5.5 million on athletic facility renovations. The project includes a new track and artificial turf field, and is scheduled to be completed by spring 2010, just in time for track season.

"They finally saw the fact that this is something that is desperately needed," Washington Township resident Joe Heverin said of the results of Tuesday's referendum.

Heverin, a former Warren Hills Regional football coach, helped draw affirmative votes as part of the independent group Friends of Blue Streaks Athletics. More than 2,600 voters went to the polls Tuesday for the referendum, well above the approximately 1,400 votes cast in the general school board election in April.

Fifty-nine percent of voters approved the project.

"I'm glad the interest was stirred up," school board President Karen Graf said.

Now that the project has gotten the nod from voters, district officials said they will focus on developing designs for the facility and looking for bids from contractors.

Superintendent Pete Merluzzi said planning has already begun and specifications will be drawn up by late fall or early winter. The district plans to put the project out for bid early next year and award the contract about May, he said.

If those steps are accomplished as expected, construction is slated to begin in June and be completed by late next year.

During the planning process, Merluzzi said district officials and engineers will attempt to address some of the concerns he heard about the project before the vote. Because the new track will run between the football field and bleachers, the superintendent said the stands must be designed so spectators don't realize how far they are from the field.

The district will also have to arrange track and field lights in a way that minimizes glare for nearby residents.

"I think we're going to do our best to be good neighbors," Merluzzi said.

Heverin said his group is already meeting to develop design ideas to present to the school board.

"This is more than a stadium for the high school," Heverin said. "It's a community stadium."

Merluzzi said that even though voters approved of the district's bonding of $5.5 million for the project, the district will wait several months before borrowing the money. Merluzzi added he is optimistic the national economy will stabilize in January.